If the actions of others had always been Martyn’s proof against faith, then wouldn’t that mean Leith’s actions could be proof for it? Leith was Martyn’s evidence. Renna. Kayleigh. Brandi. Owen. Even annoyingly perfect Shadrach Alistair. Their faith was his proof.
Even that wasn’t enough. Kayleigh had said her faith was based on God’s actions, not on something she or anyone else had done. Yet the only way to experience God’s actions was through faith.
It all came back to faith. Again. And he’d only get his proof of faith after he’d already done it, not before.
He’d read that God’s Word was like a two-edged sword. But could it be as firm and real as Martyn’s knives? If he reached out and grabbed hold, would he find it solid or would it wisp through his fingers like everything else he’d ever trusted?
What else had Martyn trusted? Respen. Leith. His parents. Mere people. Any wonder they’d failed him?
Where was the logic in trusting people while expecting them to fail? If he knew better than to trust anyone, then why keep hoping? Why keep trying?
If God was everything the Bible said, then He was the only one who could be trusted because He wouldn’t fail. That was…if the Bible was true. If this wasn’t all nonsense.
Martyn couldn’t trust people. He couldn’t trust himself. It was either trust God or trust nothing.
Only one way to truly find out.
Faith.
The most logical illogical thing he could do.
Martyn banged his head back against the lamppost hard enough to hurt. “Blistering soapsuds, you’re right about everything, aren’t you?”
“Right about what?” Owen sounded like he’d been nodding off. Not that Martyn could blame him. He’d been too busy having a debate in his head to bother keeping up a conversation.
“Faith. God. The truth. I’m the fool, aren’t I?”
“Um, yes.”
“But how can you be so sure? How can I be sure?” Why was it so hard for Martyn to trust like this? He and Owen had the same parents, the same upbringing up to a certain point, yet why did Owen trust God so unshakably when Martyn didn’t dare?
“How can I be sure? Because God gives faith. He works faith. It’s not dependent on me so I can’t shake it with my own actions.” Owen’s voice lowered. “How can you be sure? Well, you’ve had all these nagging questions eating away at you no matter how hard you try to run from them. That’s God working in you already. Keep on fighting or surrender, though either way, you’re fighting a losing battle. You can’t resist God.”
That sounded like a foolish idea, put that way. Martyn flexed his fingers, trying to work some warmth into them, but no matter what he did he couldn’t feel his fingertips.
Squeezing his eyes shut, he tried to remember his six-year-old self. The way he’d prayed. Short, childish prayers. But had they been sincere? Had he believed, once? If only he could remember what it was like to trust. To surrender.
Perhaps it felt like that moment in the Tower, holding his knife to Leith’s neck, when he’d finally realized he couldn’t kill Leith no matter how hard he tried to convince himself he could.
He’d fought. He’d deceived himself. And, in the end, he’d surrendered. Because it was the only thing left for him to do.
Martyn let out a long breath. Surrender. “I suppose I’m a Christian now.”
“You’re getting there, at least. Though, you sound like the most reluctant Christian I’ve ever heard.” Based on the tone of his voice, Owen had to be smiling. “Well, maybe not the most reluctant. Do you remember the story about Paul? He had to have Jesus appear to him personally to give him a good shake before he finally stopped fighting.”
Martyn huffed a laugh. And once he started laughing, he didn’t try to swallow it back. When was the last time he’d truly laughed? Not since Leith returned from his winter mission in Stetterly and began acting strangely.
Owen laughed too, and for a moment, the stars far above seemed a bit brighter in the black sky.
But it was only a moment. The cold air burrowed deeper into Martyn’s body until his bones ached with it. His toes, fingers, and nose barely had feeling, and what they did have throbbed. Perhaps by morning, Martyn would be so numb he wouldn’t be able to feel the flames gnawing at his skin.
His laughter died. What time was it? How much longer did he have?
Far too little. Only a few short hours to be Owen’s brother. He’d never have a chance to repair his friendship with Leith. Never admit to Kayleigh what she meant to him.
He cleared his dry throat. “Do you believe our parents are in Heaven?”
“Yes. We’ll see them there. Both of us.”
Martyn remembered Renna and Leith’s conversation about Heaven. Martyn had paced outside the room, pretending not to listen. But he couldn’t help but hear every word. Renna said relationships didn’t exist in Heaven like they did now, but they would be closer, deeper.
Martyn hadn’t known his parents all that well, nor had he seen the better side of them the way Owen had. But in Heaven, none of that past, nor Martyn’s past would matter.
This was probably where he was supposed to pray. But it had been so long since the childhood prayers he’d recited before bedtime. He tried anyway.
To the east, a line of pink spread along the horizon.
Dawn.
28
Metal scraped against metal with the faintest of clicks.
Leith held himself still, keeping his breathing even. The only light in the dugout he shared with Ranson and Jamie filtered around the wooden door set in the hillside. At this time of night, even that remained nothing more than a lessening of the shadows in the faint outline of a door.
The sound grated again. A hint of starlight glimmered along the blades of two knives, above and below the sliding bolt holding the door closed.
The Blades. After months of waiting, they’d finally come for him.
Leith touched Ranson’s shoulder. Ranson started, but his breathing eased after only a second’s pause. A moment later, Jamie’s breathing also caught before leveling out as Ranson nudged him.
Easing upright, Leith gathered his knives, strapping them on by feel in the blackness. Movement, sensed more than seen or heard, told him Ranson and Jamie did the same.
Ranson bumped Leith’s arm. They were ready.
The two knives scratched against the bolt again. Half a minute more, and the Blades would be inside.
Dirt cascaded. Starlight brightened the dugout as a hole appeared. Jamie’s body blocked the view of stars and sky before he rolled clear.
Ranson followed, then Leith crawled through their escape tunnel at the rear of the dugout and rolled onto the damp prairie grass. No sooner had his toes cleared the opening than Jamie shoved the dirt-covered hatch back in place. Exactly as they’d practiced.
Leith wiggled on his stomach around the dugout while Jamie crept the other way. Leith reached the front as a black figure pulled the door open. Three more black figures followed him inside.
Springing to his feet, Leith slammed the door shut behind them, shoving a wooden bar into place to lock it from the outside. He leapt aside as Jamie shoved his whole weight into a stack of sod pieces next to the trench cut into the hill for the door. The sod tumbled, filling the trench and sealing the door shut. At the rear of the dugout, Ranson would be piling more sod across the escape hatch.
Voices shouted from inside. Something banged against the door.
Leith drew a knife, his stomach knotting. They’d only trapped four Blades. That meant one…
A scream, then a cry of pain, echoed into the still, night air.
He sprinted toward Renna and Brandi’s dugout, knife in hand, ice in his fingers. As he turned into the trench and lunged for their door, a figure barreled into him, soft and shaking. Not the Blade. “Renna?”
A smaller figure dashed from the dugout and slammed the door, heaving the bar into place. “Got him. I think. That was close.”
Leith
let out a breath. Renna and Brandi were safe.
“Leith?” Renna sagged against him.
Something wet and warm drooled over Leith’s hand. His stomach drained into his toes, leaving behind nothing but cold.
“Renna!” Leith dropped his knife and wrapped both arms around her, lowering her to the ground. “Where are you hurt?”
Brandi dropped to her knees beside them. “Renna!”
“What’s going on?” Sheriff Allen’s stocky form loomed from the darkness as he exited his dugout next door to Renna and Brandi’s.
“Fetch a torch!” Leith eased a hand over Renna’s back and down her side. Where was she hurt? How bad was she bleeding? She shook against him, her teeth chattering. Was she even now dying, and he couldn’t even see her face in the darkness?
“Renna. I need you to focus. Where are you hurt?” As he gripped her arms, she cried out.
Her arm. Leith ran his hand up her right arm, his fingers growing slick with blood.
She cried out again.
Leith pressed his hand over her wound. How bad was it? Was she bleeding out even now?
Sheriff Allen returned with a torch. Leith lifted his hand and inspected Renna’s wound. The gash ran for a couple of inches through the muscle of her upper arm. Painful, especially for someone who had never experienced a wound like this before. But not life threatening.
She wasn’t dying. He held her tight, not sure if it was her or him shaking. Maybe both.
Renna tried to straighten against him. “I should be braver about this. You’ve had worse.”
“I’m used to it. You aren’t.” Leith forced himself to breathe. Stop panicking and start helping.
Brandi sliced off the bottom of her skirt and held out the fabric. Like Renna, she’d taken his advice to sleep in her clothes in case of trouble. “Will this help?”
“Yes.” Leith clamped the fabric over Renna’s wound, took her left hand, and closed her fingers over the makeshift bandage. “Hold that there.”
He didn’t want to let Renna go, but he had to check on the Blade in Renna and Brandi’s dugout to make sure he wouldn’t cause any more trouble. “Brandi, can you help Renna? Where did you leave the Blade?”
Brandi eased behind Renna, placing her fingers over Renna’s on the wound. “I whacked him with the cook pot. Not sure if I knocked him out or just winded him. We didn’t stick around to find out.”
“He ran into the table. That’s what woke me up. I wasn’t sure what it was at first. I thought it might be you, but you would know better than to stumble. I woke Brandi, but then the Blade was there and he was stabbing down and I rolled and…” Renna squeezed her eyes shut, shivering.
“That’s when I kicked out his legs, and we ran. He started to follow, but I grabbed the cook pot and swung it at him.”
The cast iron cook pot could do a lot of damage. Leith crept to the door and eased the bar off. “Bring the torch.”
Sheriff Allen joined him, and Leith motioned for him to stay back as he opened the door and slipped inside. As Sheriff Allen stepped into the doorway, the torch cast orange light and shadows into the dugout’s interior.
A young, blond-haired man dressed in black sprawled in front of the fireplace, groaning. Former Blade John Uldiney, the youngest and lowest ranked of the banished Blades.
Locating a sash from one of Renna’s dresses, Leith tied Uldiney’s hands behind his back, divested him of his weapons, and cinched his ankles together with his belt.
Sheriff Allen strode farther into the dugout. “All the Blades captured in one night. We can send a rider to the king tomorrow to send men to retrieve them.”
Leith eyed Uldiney. Something wasn’t right. Uldiney wore clean, good-quality black clothes, better than he could’ve gotten if he and the other Blades had been on their own this whole time. Why had they attacked now, before Leith and Renna’s wedding? Why not wait and try to kill them after their wedding when they would be in one place instead of two? “I don’t think it’ll be that simple. Wake some of the men and have them help Jamie and Ranson guard the other Blades.”
With Uldiney still only semi-conscious, Leith took the time to light a lamp and several candles and ducked back outside. Renna hunched where he’d left her, Brandi pressing the fabric over the wound. He knelt next to them. “How’re you doing?”
Renna’s teeth still chattered, but she was at least sitting up by herself. “Hurts.”
“I know. Let’s get you inside.” Leith picked her up and carried her into the dugout, Brandi trotting next to him. As he set Renna on the bench by the table, he nodded toward Uldiney. “Brandi, can you watch him? Let me know once he starts waking up enough to start moving around.”
Drawing her short sword, Brandi placed herself within an easy lunge of Uldiney, her stance wary. She stayed back far enough that Uldiney couldn’t roll or grab her sword.
Renna peeled the fabric away from the wound, twisting her head and arm to inspect it. “You’ll have to stitch it.”
“Me? No, Renna…” Leith clenched his fists, his stomach already churning as blood dribbled down her arm.
“Michelle is still at Walden, and I can’t stitch it myself. That leaves you.”
Stitch Renna’s wound? Pull a needle through her skin, watching her wince at the pain he was causing? “I can’t.”
“You’ve stitched wounds before.” Her face remained white, but some of her trembling had steadied.
“It won’t be very good. Or neat.” She had to listen. Could he force himself to tend her wound as she had done so often for him?
A smile cracked across her face. “I know. I pulled out the stitches you put in Ranson.”
But that had been different. Ranson was a fellow Blade. But Renna? Leith couldn’t. Not Renna. “Surely one of the farmers’ wives know how to put in a few stitches or someone else or…”
“I’d rather it be you.” Renna’s eyes, blue and bright with pain, met his. “I trust you.”
He didn’t have a choice. Stumbling to his feet, he found Renna’s bag of medical supplies and brought it back to the table. While Renna laid out the supplies he’d need with her uninjured hand, he dragged Uldiney out of the way and started a pot of water boiling.
Brandi didn’t take her eyes off Uldiney, though her mouth pressed into a hard, tight line.
Once he had everything gathered and the water had boiled, he straddled the bench next to Renna and sorted through the supplies. “You don’t have any painkiller set out here.”
Renna clenched her fists against her skirt. “No. Something’s happening tonight, with the Blades showing up here now of all times. I’m the lady of Stetterly. I can’t be passed out somewhere.”
No, she couldn’t. But could he stand to stitch her wound closed with her alert and shaking with pain?
He tucked her against him, and she wrapped her good arm around his waist and rested the hand of her injured arm against his chest, pressing her face against his shoulder. He lifted her elbow to give himself a better view of the gash. “You ready?”
She nodded, her fingers already fisted into his shirt.
After cutting her sleeve away from her wound, Leith sloshed alcohol into the bleeding gash. Renna stiffened, and her fingers turned into claws digging into him.
He mustn’t think about it too much. Not the warmth of her blood as it covered his fingers or the feel of the needle sliding through her skin, and especially not her muffled whimpers and the damp spot that grew on his shirt.
Finally, he wrapped the bandage over her arm and tied it. “All done.”
She straightened, scrubbing her face. “Thank you.”
He wiped a tear off her chin. She didn’t look like she should be thanking him, not with her eyes still too wide and her mouth trembling.
A surge of something both hot as midday and cold as the darkest winter night filled his chest with the familiarity of a knife in his hand and blood pouring from a victim’s throat. Uldiney had hurt Renna. He’d tried to kill her. And now he l
ay across the room within easy reach.
“Leith. Just so you know, the Blade is starting to wake up.” Even Brandi’s voice didn’t stop the heat curling into Leith’s hands.
It would only take a moment, a slash of Leith’s knife, to kill the Blade who’d hurt Renna.
Leith closed his eyes and forced himself to take deep breaths. Returning to killing like a Blade wasn’t the answer. God had brought him beyond that.
But Leith didn’t let go of the cold in his chest. Not entirely. Perhaps in the morning he’d regret what he was about to do, but with Renna’s blood still warm on his fingertips, he embraced the ice of the Blade he’d once been.
“Renna, Brandi. Step outside.” He slid to his feet and drew his knife.
“Leith?” Renna tottered upright and touched his arm. “What are you going to do?”
“Do you trust me?” Leith didn’t look at her. If he did, he might not be able to control the cold filling him.
“Yes.”
“Then leave.”
Brandi’s footsteps padded to Renna’s side, then together they shuffled outside. The door clacked shut behind them.
Leith stalked around the table, grabbed the back of Uldiney’s shirt, and yanked the Blade upright. He trailed his knife along the tender skin at the base of Uldiney’s neck.
Uldiney’s eyes went from blinking to wide in a heartbeat. “You…you wouldn’t hurt me.”
“You tried to kill the woman I love tonight. I’ve killed for far less than that.” Leith lowered his voice, his knife tracing circles against Uldiney’s skin.
Uldiney’s eyes searched Leith’s face, and a shudder traveled down his back.
29
The town woke slowly. Even in their eagerness, the first townsfolk didn’t gather in the square until the sun had fully risen above the horizon. Guardsmen approached Martyn with a rope, pinned him in place, and tied his legs at his knees so tightly he couldn’t shift an inch from the post.
The guards brought kindling, arranged it next to his feet, and piled larger logs and dead branches around his legs. They didn’t add any pitch or oil to the pile. Apparently, they intended this fire to build slowly and painfully.
Deliver (The Blades of Acktar Book 4) Page 26